Sunday at the Beach
by Doctor Shemp
Summary: I left the beach on a Sunday. The shore seemed close enough. As I set my boat in the water, I thought that anywhere would be better than here. :Survival:


I left the shore on a Sunday. It was cold, and the wind was blowing. The flag on top of my house snapped as it rippled. From the docks, I could see the islands flooded with the Spring swell, uniting the delta. Sandbars are underwater today, I noted.

That morning, I had packed my things. My rucksack was heavy, full of tools, food and wooden planks for building. On Sunday, I was getting ready to go to the far shore I could just barely see from the top of the flagpole; a dark line of land on the other side of the body of water I assumed was a strait. I had named it the Shallow Strait, because of the sandy delta on my side of its shores. I hoped that my boat wouldn't hit a reef halfway out and sink-the water was still frigid, even though it was the first day of spring.

Why was I leaving? I had everything I needed right there: trees, game, peace and quiet. What drove my lonely heart to wander? Far off shores were romantic, I guess. Adventure to break up the short, desperate days and long, miserable nights, to keep me from boredom and eventually madness. Maybe I was betting on finding a land without monsters or cold, with longer, warmer days and starry, peaceful nights.

Somewhere in this world, there has to be something better than what I have. That's what most people think, and that's what they've thought from the beginning. That longing was what led _homo sapiens sapiens _out of Africa and into Eurasia, then on to Asia, Europe, and the rest of the world. We all want something more out of our lives; it is our nature.

I had a lot of time to think about things like that before I left the shore. In my lonely little house by the sea, I thought about stupid things. I considered the beach on the other side of the house from the cove, and how long it was. It was months after I built that house until I actually followed that beach to its end; there was a small, scrubby forest and some cliffs there, exactly like the land around my homestead. There was nothing different, nothing new on the end of that beach.

Sometimes I'd look out the window at the mountains far inland, and think about going to them. No, I was always far too afraid to make the journey. What if I got lost? What if I got turned around and never found my house again? I'd have to start over from the beginning, build a new house and make a new home. I couldn't do that again.

Then again, that's was I was doing on Sunday. I was packing up and making a new home somewhere better on the other side of the Shallow Strait.

As I set my boat in the water, I heard cries over the huge dunes protecting the tundra from the warm wind of the sea. A pack of Creepers were poking their ugly green heads over the edge of the dunes, hissing loud warnings at me. After a year on the beach, I had learned that Creepers were not monsters; they were only trying to protect their home from invaders. The creatures were actually peaceful most the time. I'd seen them hunting in packs, feeding on the wild pigs. I'd seen them lounging together in tight, familiar groups on the steppes behind the dunes, grooming each other's rough, fibrous armor. I'd seen them with their young, being gentle and at play.

Wherever I was going, I had hoped there'd be no Creepers there. I needed a land that was all my own, somewhere untouched by any being. An island where my feet were the first to tread.

When I look back at who I was when I set out on that little boat, I can only shake my head. I was a foolish young person who thought the world was mine. Out on my own, I had been overconfident. Sure, I'll go to the Outlands. Sure, I'll explore and gather information. I didn't expect it to be so hard-I was close to death on my first night, cowering in a dank cave while the native creatures clawed at my wooden barricade. It was dark. I hadn't expected it to be so dark. The moon never comes out from behind the clouds at night, because that's when the snows come in. The snow and ice made everything ten times worse, but that wasn't my fault: some people land in the tropics, with hundreds of trees and warm weather, others land in the desert, with no trees at all and a hot, vengeful sun. My drop off was on the shore of that icy fjord, where it snowed every night and the wind blew full of needles. The Tundra.

I pushed my boat through the slushy water and hopped in. My shovel pushed ice away from my bow; I was surprised at how heavy it was. Sunday was ending by this time, and the sun was dipping over the distant horizon. At least there were no monsters out on the sea-that I knew of. Then again, no one had ever been where I was going. There could have been huge serpents or wicked dragons swimming just under my boat, waiting for me to fall asleep or let my guard down. That's why I brought a diamond sword.

Funny. Diamonds are so rare on Earth, but here, they're as common as topaz or zinc. They're common enough that you can make tools and weapons out of them, or full suits of armor. Their beauty is somehow diminished that way.

I said goodbye to my log cabin on the peninsula on Sunday. My boat pushed off and bobbed in the freezing water, which lapped up from the bow and sprayed in my face. I turned, and saw the Creepers gathering on the beach, watching me go, screeching horrible threats in their strange, inscrutable tongue. I cursed at them, shooting a potshot arrow at the one closest to the shore. He (the males are larger, without the pores female have on their necks) recoiled, hissing dangerously, his leafy skin smoking. The arrow was buried in his left foreleg.

Not knowing what happened to that bold, mouthy young male keeps me up at night. With that arrow in his leg, he couldn't have lived long after Sunday evening. Crippled and bleeding, he could have met any number of fates: infection, starvation, or anemia. All alone on the shore, dead. His bones bleached by the dim, distant sun, if Creepers even have bones.

That could have been me, dead and decaying on the shore.

The journey across the strait was much, much longer than I thought. Turns out, the dark stripe on the horizon was an ice floe with a pass running through it; the actual shore was much further away. For days and weeks I drifted. Snow stopped falling on the third day, and things started getting warmer. I didn't know that my boat had drifted miles off my planned course, and was headed for a continent that wasn't on my maps. This world is so much larger and so much drier than Earth.

I landed five days after I had stopped keeping count of time.

On the shore I found, there was no water. There were no trees. Only sand and endless, bleak rock plateaus under dark clouds and bad weather. A sand-rough wind bit my face, stinging my unprotected eyes and skin. I wondered how to craft goggles.

As I heaved out of my boat, my feet sank into the sand, which was much deeper and thicker than the sand on my beach. I took a few steps, but was blown back by a huge gust of razor wind that knocked me on my rear in the surf. The very land itself was hateful to me.

I spent that night underneath my boat, freezing with only a small Netherrack burner to keep me warm. A sandstorm whipped and screamed outside, mingling with the cries of unknown creatures out in the thick of the wasteland. In the morning, I found footprints with large claws and bizarre gaits in the mud around my makeshift shelter. Why the creatures didn't just flip over the boat and kill me I didn't know. Maybe they had never seen anything like it before.

The next day, I took out the materials I packed and built a small wooden house near the place where I docked. Protected from the rain and sand, I finally felt somewhat safe.

I decided that day was Sunday. For most people down on Earth, it was the day off.

I'd like a day off.


End file.
